One warm night in early spring, fourteen people entered Hildreth House’s labyrinthine halls to partake in diabolical debauchery. The next morning, thirteen were found naked and butchered, but the fourteenth body was never found.

And that’s the basic premise of Flesh Gothic, the latest novel from gru-meister Edward Lee. Just finished reading this today, and I can’t express how much I enjoyed it. It’s trash, sure, but it’s fun trash, with a heaping helping of sex, gore, and intrigue. Highly recommended.

Went down to the KOOP studios Friday morning to plug DRIVE and STAPLE! KOOP’s studio is on the third floor of a building that can at best be described as abandoned. I went to use the men’s room on the second floor and gleefully noticed that somebody had etched “It smells like death in here” in to the tile walls. It was shortly after that I got lost and spent ten minutes wondering around this building, waiting for some THING to leap out of the shadows at me.

Fifteen minutes later I was on the air with Chris and some of the other STAPLE! cats. The show went really well, and I got to pimp out not only DRIVE, but some of the Christmas short stories, as well.

That night, George and I went to the Cruiserweight CD release show. It was about halfway through their set, when George had conveniently gone to the men’s room, that Stella points me out to the crowd.

“You up for a challenge?”

Sure.

“Okay. You have to get up on stage and touch the center monitor by the end of this next song. Everybody else in the crowd has to stop you.”

Um… Okay. (There were about 900 other fucking people in the crowd, about 400 of them between me and the stage)

The song kicks in and I take off like a man fucking possessed, plowing through the crowd and getting within ten feet of the stage in a matter of seconds. I like to think it was because of my Northern Boy T-shirt. That shit scares people down south.

I lost my shoe.

Some guy offered to guard my jacket.

I kept fighting.

The crowd fought back.

For three minutes I pushed and pulled and wrestled. I rolled onto the stage and touched the monitor just as Cruiserweight finished the song (thanks for the hand, Stella!). I was judged to have just missed the bell, but I had a goddamn blast doing it, and I got to teach a few hundred people a lesson or two.

Just finished watching the excellent documentary Control Room, about the inner workings of the Al Jezeera news network during the Iraq War. Entertaining, informative, and highly thought-provoking.

My favorite highlight was the montage that featured Donald Rumsfeld bashing Al Jezeera as a form of Iraqi propaganda, then a cut to the Iraqi information minister warning Al Jezeera to stop its pro-American propaganda campaign.

For three weeks, I’ve been trying to get in touch with Satan’s Cheerleaders to see if they’d mind helping out a bit with STAPLE! We want to see if they’ll run the various raffles we’ll be having throughout the day. Only problem is, they don’t seem to want to return email. Could it possibly the part where I said we couldn’t pay them in cash, or was it the part where we said we could pay them in comics?

God, it hurts to be lame.

DRIVE should be available within a week from Frequency Press. The book should (cross them fingers!) arrive at the warehouse by Tuesday or Wednesday. Currently, you can order the book through your local comics retailer (if they have an FM account. we’re in the March catalog), and you’ll be able to order it online from Frequency by late next week. Pick one or two up. Daddy needs some royalties!

I should be on the radio next Friday for those in the Austin area. I’ll be appearing along with STAPLE! honcho Chris Nicholas on Austin’s KOOP to promote STAPLE! (and DRIVE, by crumb!). We’ll be on The Swinger (I think, and it’s not a dirty show, sicko!), so tune in and listen to my deep, yet nasal voice!

Beth, a friend of mine from high school, made it down to Austin for an appearance Saturday. Now, I haven’t seen Beth in person in over six years or so. I’m happy to report that she’s much the same, no strange new limbs or anything. She also held off on telling Shawna anything terribly embarrassing about my high school years. Doesn’t matter, really. I usually tell Shawna those stories all on my own.

Saturday night, Shawna and I drug Beth downtown to see The Flametrick Subs perform down at Beerland. Now, the Subs are a kickass band in the finest manner, Evil Rockabilly and Cowpunk with bonus songs about codeine and x-ray glasses. The Subs have the added bonus of their own go-go squad, too. The magnificent Satan’s Cheerleaders. You might have seen squad 666 in a little video called Smells Like Teen Spirit (at least, that’s what I’m told). I don’t think Shawna had ever seen these delightfully sinful girls perform before. Now, she has a full blown crush on Ms. Sindee Lux.

Sunday was a superbowl party where I spent the entire night huddled over the stove, forking chili into my mouth by using Fritos as spoons.

Shawna and I went to see Straylight Run open for Something Corporate last night. I think we might have been the oldest ones there. It took us a few minutes to realize why there was no line at the bar. Wierd. Got a chance to talk to Will from Straylight after the show, and the look of relief in his eyes at seeing someone his own age was almost heartbreaking.

Oh, and everytime my line of sight is obscured by some kid holding up their cell phone to take a picture, I want to snap their damn arm off.